World Cup Lifts Sao Paulo’s Korean Community

Korean-Brazilian fans pose for a photo with Belgian fans before the Korea vs Belgium game in Sao Paulo.

Jun-Youb Lee for The Wall Street Journal

SAO PAULO–When Brazil hosted its last World Cup in 1950, you’d struggle to find any Koreans living in the country. Since then, Brazil has become home to 50,000 ethnic Koreans, and many of them have been showing their support for South Korea’s short-lived campaign in this year’s tournament.

At Korea’s final match against Belgium on Thursday evening in Sao Paulo, some 1,200 Korean-Brazilians showed up to the stadium according to Yang Jae-won, the head of the Korean-Brazilian football association.

“I don’t usually follow Korean soccer and I cheer for Brazil because I am Brazilian and Brazil has a chance of winning,” said Sao Paulo-born 22-year-old David Kang, who came to the game with his Korean parents and sister.

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“But I do have other Korean-Brazilian friends who care more about Korean soccer than they do about Brazilian soccer,” he said.

At the end of the 1950’s, as South Korea struggled to recover from the Korean War, Seoul’s military regime encouraged emigration to Brazil to provide some of the nation’s surplus labor for the South American country’s rapid economic development. By 1966, a total of 1,300 Koreans had moved to Brazil in five waves, mainly to become farm workers. Over 90% eventually moved to Sao Paulo to find work in Brazil’s growing metropolis.

Koreans fans during the Korea vs Belgium game.

Jun-Youb Lee for The Wall Street Journal

At the stadium on Thursday, some of the Korean-Brazilian fans wore t-shirts with the logo “Red Angels” — a play on the name for the official Korean team fan club, “Red Devils.” The two fan groups met in front of the stadium before kick-off, sang the national anthem and familiar Korean soccer songs, and entered the stadium together.

For Korea’s two earlier matches, around 100 Korean-Brazilian fans traveled for over 20 hours each way from Sao Paulo to support the team on buses organized by Korean Brazilian Association.

Gatherings have also been held at a square in Bom Retiro, Sao Paulo’s Koreatown, to watch Korea’s matches on big screens. Traditional dance and music, K-pop and B-boy performances helped invigorate the crowd ahead of kick-off.

“We were only expecting a crowd of about a thousand during the first game so we ran out of free shirts. Three thousand shirts were not enough for the second game,” said Park Jee-Ung, head of a Korean culture center and one of the organizers of the street events.

Despite the disappointing results, many Korean-Brazilians saw the World Cup as an opportunity for them to reaffirm their collective identity.

“Although many Korean-Brazilians join Korean churches and Korean sports associations, there is some rivalry among us because most of us work in the clothing business,” said Na Sung-Ju, vice president of Korean Brazilian Association.

Korean-Brazilians, who dominate Brazil’s fashion industry, own over clothing 800 stores in Bon Retiro, and another 2,000 stores in nearby neighborhood Bras.

“The World Cup was important for us because it has been an uplifting experience for the downtrodden Korean-Brazilian community,” Mr. Park said.

“The economy here has been harder than people think it is. Soccer has given us something to celebrate,” he said.